Being Foolish

I try to read for improvement whenever I can.  I do not casually buy every book that comes out, but I am always watching for titles that will challenge me in my walk with God.  Over the last couple years  I have read a lot of books on Marriage as I try to understand what has gone wrong in mine.  I want to learn how to change behaviors and avoid mistakes.  I also read a lot of men’s books, trying to understand my own heart and the way God created me.  Every once in a while, I feel like I need to step back from all the self-examination, and read something that examines Christ, something that points to him.

I have only just begun to read The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus but I can already tell it will be that kind of book.   I am doing a bunch of underlining of things I want to write about or think about more.  One thing that struck me is the idea that the pursuit of power, pleasure and safety keep us from being transparent.  This by itself is a good thing to note, but what the author is really saying, and explains more, is that it keeps Christ from shining through us.  We become a shaded lamp which does not let His light through, instead of a lighthouse with a blazing bulb inside.  This is a different way to talk about transparency.  I generally think about it as me being transparent about my feelings, motives and actions.  Without Christ, that kind of transparency is like an inner window in an old apartment building that has been bricked up.  It is still transparent, but looking through it does not show you anything.  I need to be transparent for the purpose of letting Him shine through.

Be Be Be Be Be Be Be maybe get to do.

I feel like I should just cut and post Romans 6-8 here and be done.  So many of the things I have written about in the last year are things I have struggled with throughout my life.  Many of the principles at work are things that I have always given mental assent to.  If not for Christ I would be a monster.  By grace, I am saved, regenerated, renewed.  I know I have written this before, but it is the only thing.

There is nothing else.  I am beginning to know it.  I will probably always be beginning to know it.  Most likely I will die knowing that I have just barely scratched the surface of the depths of God’s love for me.  Knowing grace is the key.  I need to let it flow through me.  If it is not flowing through me, do I really know it?

I fail often.  When I fail I apologize.  I ask forgiveness.  Some have said that my failures are a sign that I do not know it, do not mean it, am not really trying to live it.  The key is what I do with that failure.  I can internalize it, beat myself up for days, weeks or years, or I can give it to the Lord and move ahead.  Yes I fail, yes I will probably fail again tomorrow.  I have only truly failed if I am turned away from Christ by my failure.  I must keep pressing on.  Even if sometimes all I am doing is leaning into the wind that blows against me.

It is so simple it makes me want to pound the keyboard.

Seeing the Big Picture

During the last few months I have struggled with God’s will.  I have done some thinking about His general will vs his specific will and our free will.  I do not get very far in this struggle before I am forced to go back to Job 42.  Last Saturday John Piper posted an article titled Can Jesus Weep Over What He Wills that adds another twist to the unfathomable depths of the Lord.   I wish I could see more of the big picture.